Today’s activity is called finger puppets – a great way to add some spice to circle time. With these puppets, children can become more actively engaged in doing finger plays, such as “5 Little Monkeys.”

Prepare for the activity by first choosing a song that you’ll want to use with the finger puppets.

Next, you’ll create your finger puppets. You can easily create the puppets by finding an old glove and cutting off the finger parts of the glove. You can use just about any glove, including a garden glove or a rubber glove.

If you don’t have an old glove, you can also create puppets by using felt. Choose an appropriate color of felt. Trace your finger with a pen on the felt. Then cut out two pieces of felt at the same time so that they match. Next, sew the two pieces of felt together, leaving the bottom part open for your finger.

Once you have your blank finger puppet ready, decorate the glove or felt fingertip to resemble the animal in your song. You can use Sharpie markers to draw a face. Or you can get more creative and glue wiggly eyes on and other scraps of felt to form a nose and mouth. You can even glue cotton balls or yarn for the animal’s hair or fur.

After you’ve decorated the finger puppets, introduce the puppets and the song to the children and begin using the puppets to tell the story of the song.

For younger children, find a simple finger song so the children are able to follow along and learn some simple words to match with the puppets.